It’s a season of stars on Broadway. Robert Downey, Jr. has stepped away from the MCU for the LCT (Lincoln Center Theater) for the play McNeal, opening soon; Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal will clash in Othello; George Clooney will star in the announced adaptation of his film Good Night, and Good Luck; and Alex Winter (Bill) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) may be Waiting for Godot. Whoa.
Before the guys take the stage we have two glittery gal pals, Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone, at the Booth, starring in Jen Silverman’s edgy comedy The Roommate. Making it all the more cozy is that the long-time buddies and Connecticut neighbors are directed by a mutual friend, Jack O’Brien, who is self-described in the Playbill as “currently celebrating his Lifetime Achievement Tony Award, but apparently he is still working.” And working well, with one star (Farrow) who has acted only sporadically in recent years and hasn’t had a long stage run on the Main Stem since the Carter presidency and the other (LuPone) who has threatened to leave Broadway behind. But whatever reservations you may have about the material you’ll be glad they’ve shacked up together. The show opens with their names in light, and they live up to the billing.
The Roommate transpires in Iowa, which, as Sharon (Farrow) explains to Robyn (LuPone), is different from Illinois or Idaho, the places that have defined her somewhat culturally narrow trajectory in life. Robyn has just moved into Sharon’s house, all the way from New York City (or, more, specifically, the Bronx), as Sharon has found herself at loose ends now that her son has left home and her “lifetime position” (that is, her marriage) has ended. The dottily genteel Sharon, in her strait-laced Midwest attire, and the black leather-clad Robyn, a vegan lesbian, are a quintessential odd couple but Silverman (whose plays include last season’s Spain, coolly received Off Broadway) is more interested in their similarities, which gradually come into focus. Robyn finds a measure of solace in the sameness of her new life, but the admittedly “nosy” Sharon, who’s always politely clattering around, is intrigued by the vestiges of her streetwise past, including the pot she’s growing (and slipping into their food). That is, until she hears Robyn referred to as “Victoria” in a phone call, and finds more evidence that her unusual new friend isn’t who she seems.
That’s about all I should say about the plot, except that The Roommate isn’t a mystery, or a thriller. (Or strong on plot.) It’s more about how the two women, marooned from their grown children and past lives, transform one another, the mousy Sharon quite radically. (Wait’ll you see what she brings home from Walmart.) Submerging some of her usual command (though winning laughs the way she spits out words like “spacious” and “bitter gourd”) LuPone underplays the guarded Robyn, gradually letting in some softness to add dimension. Farrow, by contrast, lets Sharon’s eccentricity hang out, and gives a gangling, often hilarious performance as she finds new sides to a personality long gone static. Together they make the show feel less slight than it might be in other hands. (It’s been kicking around in regional productions for some time and will likely be the last contemporary play to make such extensive use of a corded phone, which the two yield with aplomb.) Given an unfussy, unobtrusive design and a nice scene-setting score by Full Monty and Band’s Visit composer David Yazbek The Roommate is worth moving in with for an evening.
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